Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act
A federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump’s invocation of it was “unlawful.”
US district court judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. ruled that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who, the Republican administration claims, are gang members invading the United States.
Rodriguez said he wouldn’t interfere with the government’s right to deport people in the country illegally through other means, but it could not rely on the 227-year-old law to do so.
“Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States,” wrote Rodriguez, who was nominated by Trump in 2018.
But, the judge said, “the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”
